Shadow of Dragons II
by Gabion
Summary: The Vikna family have legends of myths of their family having been seeded by a dragonrider, and meeting with the dragons of Pern through the Long Interval. No one believes them, but what if it were true, and someone could verify it?
1. Chapter 1

So here we have the beginning of the end of the questions about Andoya and her suitor Vikna, and the dragonriders who passed through so long ago most people have forgotten them and think it only legend and myth that the family holds so fiercely to the tale.

I do not own Pern or the dragonriders - that privilege belongs to Ann McCaffery who has gone from us to the Great Gather, RIP, but she lives on in our remembrance.

The girl gathering greens at the edge of the field glanced anxiously at the angle of the sun, calculating the time passing. They were free of Thread at the moment, and it was only a quick run back to the house and compound to be safe. She bent again to the wild greens growing under and between the tumbled stones of the wall; this would have to be mended soon, but she could not see her father Kaval ordering men out to do it until Fort Weyr signalled a few days clear of Thread.

On the thought, her unease grew too much, and she closed the flap of her satchel, turned, and began to jog back to the house. Seen from this lower elevation the various roofs and chimneys crouched on the horizon like a dragon itself.

"Like a dragon? Why compare those beauties to that old place?" she muttered crossly to herself, but the image stuck in her mind, and she began to sing snatches of one of the old songs, not Harper Crafted, but handed down through the tight knit family, and sung around the winter hearth.

"_Bronze__and__gold,__green__and__blue,_

_See the dragons passing through. _

_See their riders proud and tall,_

_Onwards, onwards, save us all."_

She added a few trills of her own to the old tune, and was smiling as she came to the gate of the compound. Nevertheless she looked around warily in case anyone had seen her slip away, and gave a huff of relief as she arrived safely in the kitchens.

"And where have you been, missy?"

"Just to gather greens, aunty,"

"Andova, you will be the death of me, running off like that," her aunt said crossly, but Andova, eldest daughter of the cothold, tipped the greens into a bowl, and began to wash them, expertly swirling a minimum of water to get the grit off the dark green leaves.

"Good growth," her aunt said grudgingly, and the chief cook Sara came over to gather a share.

"Andova knows all the best places, Arun," she said with a smile. "Thank you for those, youngster, but it don't let you off the chores. I've a basket of mending to do, or you can sit with the old aunties."

"I'll do both," Andova said at once. "Their room has a good light, better than the storerooms."

She blew a kiss to the two women and left the kitchen, executing a few dance steps as she did so, knowing they were probably tutting and shaking their heads.

"Chores and more chores, and chores after that," Andova murmured aloud, a bad habit of hers, but one she had grown into, being the eldest of the family, and a long gap between her and her siblings.

"Hello Senjoy," she continued in a louder voice as she came into the storerooms. "Counted it all?"

"I count it in and I count it out," Senjoy said in a resigned voice. "Only it's never the same total twice, Ana."

"You should use a marker," Andova said in a gentler voice, coming in to survey the crocks of food. "Go and get a shingle from the wood yard, and a piece of charcoal, and mark the crocks, and write down the number of marks on the shingle."

Senjoy looked doubtful. "They won't run away from me, will they?"

"What? The crocks?"

"No, the numbers. I don't do numbers very well."

"Well, try the trick with the shingle, and see if it helps."

Andova collected a basket of mending, sniffing at the clothes and wrinkling her nose; these days the clothes were dried indoors, and sometimes they smelt stale and dank if the windows had been shuttered closed.

"Where are you off to?" Senjoy asked. "Mending again? I thought you did that last week?"

"I enjoy it, and it keeps the old aunties company," Andova said truthfully.

"You mean you can listen to their tales and sing unCrafted songs," Senjoy replied accurately, with a smile and a shake of her head that reminded Andova of their mother Hintra.

"Tra-la-la! And what's wrong with a few old songs and stories, eh?"

Andova grinned at her sister, tousled her hair, kissed the tip of her nose and was off again down the corridors of the ancient cothold, finding her way with ease through what visitors grumbled was a maze and a labyrinth. New rooms had been built in each generation, and since it had seemed a shame to waste the warmth of a chimney, the outer passage would be roofed over to make a long narrow hall, and then subdivided into rooms again, perhaps with a half roof put in for storage, and that became another room.

Andover opened the door to the old aunties' room and came in, swinging her basket of mending to a stool, and going across to the three beds.

"Hello aunties!" she said in a cheerful voice. "Here I am again, turning up like a bad mark, and moithering you with my questions!"


	2. Chapter 2

I don't own Pern, but like I've said before, we can fill in the cracks with our own stories!

The alarm bell was rung next day, to signal Thread. In every room, someone leaped to clear the deep set windowsills, close the shutters, and bring everyone to the centre of the room.

"But Thread is seared before ever it reaches us," Elum grumbled, coming away from the loom where she had been weaving a woollen blanket. No one must stand near anything that was not stone or metal during Threadfall. That edict had only been in force for the nine years since the Pass began, but it had been handed down through the generations since the Eighth Pass, a time so long ago it had gone into legend. Amongst the many edicts handed down through the generations, that one had come true at last, Andova thought as she sat down resignedly amongst the newly made vessels in the pottery.

"It won't last long," Porgrun said briskly as he lit a lamp. "We might as well use the time well, niece, and sweep the place out."

Andova picked up a broom, inspecting the frayed twig ends, and deciding it would do for another round of the endless brushing out the pottery seemed to need. The family made all its own pots, and the clay dried and crumbled, and had to be swept into bins to be tossed back into the mix.

"Why don't we go out to see the dragons, uncle?" Andova asked. "I'd like to see a dragon and its rider."

"Well now, and so would I, but if they're overhead, so is Thread, and it wouldn't do to chance an encounter with that," Porgrun replied. "I heard tell Kaval was asked to provide a flame-thrower crew to patrol in case any of the hardwoods were infected."

"What did he say? Thank you kindly, but we stay close at home? He wouldn't let any of the men out to mix with others, would he?"

Porgrun flapped his grubby apron at his niece.

"There you go, leaping to conclusions! He actually said he would consider it."

Andova was so surprised she stopped sweeping. Her uncle grinned at her, and wagged a finger.

"There you are, you see, missy, he isn't such an old grump and frump as you imagine, is he?"

Andova flushed crimson and looked away.

"I never thought he was," she muttered. "'Twasn't me said that, uncle."

"Hmm. Well, you had the caning for it, anyway."

Andova swept the crumbling remnants expertly into the bin and stood it upright, ready to be put away. They both heard footsteps, and Andova put the broom down, took two long strides, and was standing by the kiln when her father put his head round the door to check on them.

"What are you doing in here, Ana?"

"Just helping out a bit, father, brought some water and a bite to eat for Uncle."

"Good girl. It's a short fall, they say, so we'll be out checking the fields before long."

"Yes father."

He left the room, and Andova looked at her uncle.

"Did he know I was using the broom?"

"I expect he knows one of us used it, the floor's too clean," Porgrun said resignedly. "I didn't think of the broom as being natural stuff, niece, and that's a fact."

He cocked his head and listened, as they both heard the clatter and rush of something falling, and Porgrun wrenched the door open to go and look.

A girl lay sprawled in the corridor, clutching her right ankle, sobbing bitterly. Porgrun gave a grunt of exasperation, bent and picked her up and brought her into the pottery.

Andova swung a chair around into the middle of the room and Porgrun set the girl down.

"Falla, whatever were you doing out there?" Andova said as she knelt down and tried to examine the girl's ankle. "Let me see! I think it's only a sprain, you probably went over awkwardly."

"I felt dizzy suddenly," Falla said, her voice the high discontented whine of a child. "I was looking for Danva."

"He's with the clean up crews, waiting to see if we need to go out and check the fields," Porgrun said gently. "You know that's his task in Threadfall, niece."

"I wanted him to stay with me."

That was unanswerable without being unkind, Andova thought as she bathed and bound the slightly swollen ankle of her cousin's wife. She had always thought Danva had made a mistake in marrying this highly strung and decidedly spoilt girl, but it was not something she had ever said aloud.

"There we are, Falla, it'll soon feel as good as new. Listen - the all clear - I'll take you back to the main room, shall I, we'll sit with the others, have a cup of klah and do some work on the baby clothes?"

"I feel dizzy," Falla complained again, and Porgrun shrugged at Andova's look, as she helped the other girl out. Slowly, complainingly, they made their way to the big living room and the shutters were being opened, Brin and Rostova hanging excitedly out of the window, hoping to see the last of the dragons and their riders as they swept a high patrol before returning to their Weyr.

"I'd like to see them properly," Brin grumbled, and to her horror, Andova found herself repeating her uncle's stricture_.__I__sound__like__an__old__aunty,_she thought_.__I__'__m__too__young__to__sound__like__the__older__generation._

Kaval came in then, and went across to Falla.

"How are you, m'dear? You mustn't rush around like that, with being only a little way into pregnancy. Take your time, and ask for help if you need it."

"I wanted to be with Danva."

"Very praiseworthy, but he'll be out in the fields for a while. Is that klah, Ana? I'll take a cup."

She poured it for him, and sweetened it a little, and he stood blowing on it, looking around the room, counting heads, Ana thought. Falla had gone over to be comforted by a cousin, one of a dozen or so in this extended family living in the rambling Hold. They were only a minor holding amongst the many looking to Fort Hold for protection, but they always boasted they were the best.

"Was it only a short fall, father? You always seem to know these things."

"Yes, short and quite ordinary, and because of it they had Weyrlings flying," her father replied. "That hatching from the Old Timers must have been fruitful."

"Have you ever seen a hatching?"

He shook his head. "We're too far from Benden, m'dear, for me to have seen that. I've heard of it, of course, we all have, and what I have seen, in my youth, was the tapestry at Ruatha Hold showing the formations of dragons."

"Why were you at Ruatha?" Andova asked, hoping to keep him talking, to gain some more information about him, a secretive man always.

"Oh, maybe I was doing a bit of courting," her father said with a smile. "No, I was looking at their runnerbeasts, but the prices were too high for me then, so I came home with a song or two and some pretty stones to cut and polish."

Andova refilled his cup, but he put it down when someone called, and then he was gone, and Andova collected up the used cups, their own making, and trotted down to the kitchen to wash up and dry and put away, and help out with the evening meal, helping to boil more water because the ground crews would be grubby and tired when they came in.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't own Pern - more's the pity!

I can't recall if the Healer Hall had knots of colour like the Harpers?

The clean up crews brought more than their tired and grubby selves. Danva was helping a stranger into the outhouses where buckets of hot water waited.

"Is Ana around?" he asked.

"It's no more than a sprain," the stranger said. "Give me a cold compress and a bandage, and I'll fix it myself."

"Awkward, to be bending to an ankle," Danva replied, and seated the man who subsided onto the bench, allowing himself a grimace of pain.

Andova put her head cautiously round the door, but no one had stripped off their clothing, and she came over to the stranger, giving him a quick assessing glance for status and allegiance. He wore good clothes, but with a worn leather jacket over all, and good boots.

"Fell over and turned his ankle or his knee, Ana," Danva said briskly. "Let me help you off with that jacket, I'll get it brushed and cleaned."

"I had to find the only mud patch in the whole field," the stranger said with a smile, and a lilt in his voice Andova could not place. Feeling over his right leg, she found a swelling in his knee and another on his ankle under the fine leather of the boot.

"Just a twist, as Danva said," she said briskly. "I'll make you a hot fomentation for the knee, and a strapping for the ankle. Will you bring him through when you've washed up, Danva? See if you can ease that boot off without cutting it."

"Yes, I'll do that."

Andova went to collect some of the pale yellow clay she used on men and beasts alike, warming it on the hearth in one of her special vessels marked with a double twisted line around an upright. Her stock of bandages was still good, but she made a mental resolve to loom some more when she had time.

"Here we are, cousin," Danva said. "I forgot to introduce you, didn't I? Andova, my cousin, eldest daughter of the Holder, this is Viman, who's staying over with Farmer Trid."

Andova nodded at the introduction, and watched as Viman rolled up his trouser leg. His skin was pale, as if he did not get out into the sun very much, but then this was not ten Turns ago, when there had been no Thread and a body could lie out in the sun during the day.

"Can I ask why you're staying with Farmer Trid?" she asked.

Viman shrugged.

"It was the first farm I reached after leaving my own place. I'm on my way back to Fort Hold, but I mistook the time, I was gathering leaves in the hedgerow."

Andova looked up at him, and was aware he was staring down at her as she knelt at his feet binding the swollen ankle. Was that admiration in his look? She doubted it, but then she was not expert in interpreting the looks of men, only their ills and complaints.

"Leaves? For food?"

"Just to see what's different in this valley - I never was through this way before, and there might be something useful."

"There's always a use to be found in herbs and such like."

"And you do the healing here?"

"Oh, it's not healing, that I do," Andova replied quickly. "I don't aspire to healing, but I can bandage a sprain and set a broken limb."

Kaval came in as she was finishing and washing her hands, folding the unused bandages, watching her father warily. He was a man who disliked strangers, but no one could be turned away when Thread might fall, and night was coming on.

"You are welcome to stay the night," Kaval was saying. "We'll send you on tomorrow when your leg is rested."

"Thank you. Farmer Trid - "

"Danva, my nephew, told one of their crew I was taking you in, our Hold being nearer. Let's get you into the main room, and find some klah and something to eat."

"I left my belongings at the farm - "

"They'll come over before you leave, don't fret over that."

Kaval put a shoulder under the young man and helped him out and Andova fussed over her basket and then put it away.

"What d'you think?" Sara asked as she checked the dishes for the main meal of the evening. "Seems a nicely set up young man, and that is not cheap clothing he's wearing!"

"No, I noticed. He's not a man who walks very much, or at least, not for long distances, either. Those boots aren't made for walking country ways."

Sara nodded. "Viman. Not a usual name, but then ours aren't usual either, are they? I wonder - if he comes from another branch of the family?"

"Are there other branches? I thought we all lived together, here, since - since I don't know when?"

Sara shook her head.

"Couldn't have done, stands to reason," she replied briskly. "There's a lot here now, but there must have been more in the past, who moved out and made their own lives elsewhere, or apprenticed themselves to Crafts somewhere. But I doubt if they remember, nor keep it alive, not like you and Kaval do."

Andova stared doubtfully at their cook housekeeper.

"Does he?"

"Oh yes. He might not speak about it much, but he knows it all, knows all the little songs and rhymes that keep it alive, and I'm told he went to Fort Weyr once, but it's difficult to count the Turns accurately any more, and he missed them who went forward."

Andova glanced quickly around, but no one seemed to listening; talking of _them__who__went__forward_was something frowned at before strangers, but there was only one stranger in the Hold tonight, not counting the wives and husbands who had married into the family rather than taking family members out of it.

"Here - strike the gong - ready to dish up now," Sara continued, and Andova took the hint, and struck the gong in the hallway to summon the family to the evening meal, although from the rising babble of talk in the main room she thought they had all followed their noses already and were assembling in the huge dining room. She found she was looking forward to the meal, to finding out more about Viman, and perhaps they would have some news of other places, even a new song or two.

To her dismay, Kavla had seated Viman next to her, and she supposed she had to do the proper things as the eldest daughter of the Holder, calling the servers to serve him a large portion of meat, make sure his pottery goblet was well filled with the fiery beer they brewed in the Hold.

Her brothers were only 10, and like the other children above the age of 8, dined at a lower table with their mentors to watch their manners and quell too much boisterousness.

"That was a short fall of Thread?" Andova asked, groping desperately for something to say. "Nothing escaped the wing?"

"No, not a scrap," Viman said, taking some of the roasted roots being passed around, and a generous ladleful of thick sauce. "As you say, a short fall, but the Weyr Leaders have the falls all mapped out now, like the Old Timers did."

"I thought - that is - have you met any Old Timers?"

Viman shrugged. "They live in Fort Weyr, but you can see them passing to and fro sometimes. Sometimes they'll come to trade."

Andova studied him thoughtfully.

"You don't sound very grateful," she ventured at last. "At them coming forward, I mean?"

"What's to be grateful about?"

"Their arrival saved Pern, and they fight Thread for us."

"They tithe hard, so my father says, harder than he tithes to Ford Hold."

"But it will only be for fifty Turns or so, and then Thread will pass on again, and they can - they can - "

She frowned at her plate, and shrugged, and Kavla broke in with a question about Farmer Trid, and Andova could concentrate on her food, but she was wondering what dragonriders did when there was no Thread. According to the legends of the family, they upped and left their Weyrs and travelled forward in time to another Pass. But only, she reminded herself, if there was someone from that time to guide them through _between_.


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry about the long hiatus, moving office, meeting deadlines, Christmas holidays - you know how it it! Once again, Pern is not mine, but I dabble at the edges.

Viman did not leave the next day. The weather turned bad, and rain shrouded the Hold. The men went out to check the stone barns and outhouses, feed the stock, but Kaval refused to allow their enforced guest to help out.

"Rest that leg whilst you have the chance," he said in his abrupt way. "There's plenty of things you can do indoors - listen to the children reading their lessons - tell us a bit about yourself and why you're estranged from your family."

Viman stared at him, and Andova watched her father warily; so far as she knew, only they two seemed to have picked up on that particular nuance.

"Estranged - I've been visiting them!"

"Yes, and a mighty short visit it was, as well. Young Tridelm told me he saw you walk past a seven-day gone, and now you're back. It's a good few days walk to Fort Hold, young man, and only to take a day or two to visit the family?"

Viman shrugged, his face closing into anger.

"They didn't welcome me. I don't know why I bother going over every year, but I always hope I'll be welcome, and Master Robinton says I should try."

"The Master Harper? Takes a close interest in you, does he? You're not a Harper, at least not by the sound of your voice last night."

Viman grimaced. "No, I'm not a Harper."

"Which means you're a Healer," Kaval said with a nod to his daughter. "What rank?"

"I'm a journeyman Healer," Viman said sulkily. "I've been a journeyman about two years, in the Healer Hall. How did you guess?"

"I don't guess at things, young man. I put things together. You were gathering leaves and herbs, young Tridelm said. You questioned my daughter last night about the clay poultice she uses. Mighty close questioning, I'd have said."

Viman blushed suddenly. "She's a pretty girl, sir."

"I don't deny it, although others would. All right. A journeyman Healer, and I'd be glad if you would take a look at a few of our people whilst you're here."

"I'd be pleased to, sir."

So Andova took him to see the two old aunties and they tittered and joked as he asked about their health. He examined Falla but beyond saying she needed to take more rest and more greens, he made no comment on her.

"She's not holding it right," Andova said bluntly as they walked slowly down to the pottery.

"No, I know, but I'm not expert enough to know how to correct it," Viman admitted. "I'll enquire at the Healer Hall, and send a scrip, if I can."

"We'd be grateful. She's so frail and fearful, that can't be good either."

"No it isn't. Do you produce all the pottery in the valley? I recognise that blue slip, Farmer Trid has some of that."

"Not our best," Porgrun said dismissively. "We used to send our best to Fort Hold, but we've not been able to do so for a while, fashions and opinions change, people want something new."

Viman ran a finger over the glazed red pottery with its relief moulded figures.

"These are beautiful," he said. "Do you use the same clay that Mistress Andova uses for poultices?"

Porgrun laughed. "Yes of course! That pale yellow clay make white pottery, and that can take a coloured slip or paint wonderfully well. But like I say, apart from tithe and trade goods, there's little call for our best."

"You must take it to Gathers? You have Gathers in the valley?"

Porgrun was testing a new batch of clay, and Andova answered.

"When there's time between Thread we go to Gathers."

"With the new timings, everyone can learn when Thread will fall, and plan accordingly. Did Fort Hold send you out the timings?"

Andova shook her head.

"We aren't the chief hold in this valley, you know."

"Just the biggest?"

Andova eyed him warily. "We tend to keep our family members close to home, yes."

"And such unusual names, as well. My own family have a few handed down - Viman is one of them, but the oldest tales say it was once Vikra."

"More likely Vikna," Porgrun replied. "That's our family name, from the man who founded the family and this hold as well, four hundred or so Turns ago."

"That's when they say our hold was founded as well! Did he found two holds? Do you know anything about him? We have a piece of weapon armour, a gold dagger hilt with inlaid stones, that's said to be his."

Porgrun shrugged. "The stories say he was a guard, up near High Reaches Weyr, but he and his family came from this area. You'd have to ask Kaval if he'd be willing to let you see the records."

Viman looked from one wary face to the other. "Old records are being collected now," he offered carefully. "The Harpers tend to try and collect any old writings or older songs - not Harper crafted songs - and you have a few of them. Master Harper Robinton might be interested in your tales and songs."

Porgrun pointed a thick clay-smirched finger at him.

"Your Master Harper will ask permission of the Holder like anyone else, before he goes poking and prying into the depths of this hold!"

"But - he's the Master Harper," Viman stammered.

Porgrun shook his head. "No more than a man like the rest of us, and like I say, he'd have to have Kaval's permit, and that ain't often given!"

Andova hustled the stunned Healer out of the pottery before he could say anything more, and Viman stood looking out at the rain-swept countryside.

"He's the Master Harper," he said stubbornly. "He can go anywhere!"

"Not here," Andova said briskly.

"Why? Are there secrets your family has? About the past? About the dubious past of our common ancestor?"

"I neither know nor care if he had a dubious past," Andova snapped. "That's in the past, and this is now, and we have to cope with fifty Turns of Thread before we can have leisure to ask those questions."

"But if you have old records - didn't you hear about the things they found in Benden Weyr? And in Fort Weyr as well?"

"No, why should we know? What things?"

"Old records, some of them inscribed on metal so they would keep. Old Time things - artefacts - Master Smith Fandarel has them to examine."

Andova shrugged, staring out in her turn at the rain, seeing a thin band of lighter grey where the clouds were beginning to shred.

"Old Time things shouldn't concern us. We need to make the most of what we have now, and move on. The flame-throwers - yes - those are useful - and some of the new things made out of wood. But in the end - with Thread - wood is a threat. Everything must be made of stone or pottery."

"Pottery? I suppose you make shields out of it?"

Andova glared at him. "And suppose we do? Suppose we make things that last four hundred Turns? All you wanted to do was admire the pretties Porgrun makes, not ask him about the useful things!"

Viman held up a hand to placate her. "I'm sorry! I always seem to say the wrong things, and it had me thrown out of my home. Please - let's go and write down some of those pretty songs from last night?"

Andova drew a breath and relaxed, because she had nearly blurted out one of the deep secrets of the hold. Scribing down songs would be an innocuous exercise, and some of them might be approved at the Harper Hall and passed on out of the valley. It was not as if she intended to teach him any of the closely held family songs, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

So there are deep secrets in this Hold! I wonder who will winkle them out?

Andova could not decide whether or not she missed Viman after he eventually moved on. His leg had healed well, and he was grateful for that, and took some of her healing notes, although she warned him the thought they would only work with the herbs she had to hand in their valley.

"He was a nice young man," Sara said as she turned the bread, ready to bake new loaves. "A bit of money there, as well. I know that hold he comes from, and they have some wealth from somewhere."

"He probably won't get any of it," Hintra remarked. "If ever I knew a youngster with an unfortunate manner, it was him! Everything he said seemed to get across someone!"

"But that can be trained out," Andova said stubbornly. "Anyone can learn a gloss of manners and nice speech, surely? And as a journeyman Healer, he needs to use some gloss with his patients."

"Humph."

Hintra moved around the kitchen checking her stores. They had been too busy to stop and draw breath, it seemed, as the earth yielded up the harvest they had planted in the early part of the year.

They had food stored in the deep cellars, hay drying in the stone barns, and the livestock were gathered into the sheds sheltered from the frequent sleety showers in this part of the Turn.

"Did father write to Fort Weyr to ask about the Threadfall calculations, mother?" Andova asked.

"I don't know if he did, daughter," Hintra admitted. "We've had two more falls, but nothing reached the ground, did it? I'll say something about those Old Time dragonriders, they know their business, and the youngsters they're training will benefit."

Andova took a basket of food to go and feed the livestock. She glanced automatically into the sky, and saw sunlight winking from something flying high up. Entranced at this glimpse of dragons without Thread, she paused with head tilted back to watch them. Brown and green, she thought, and then realised what they were in fact doing; this was a mating flight because there were three browns arrowing into the sky after the flirtatious green.

With a deep blush and with heat suffusing her body, Andova hurried on to the barns and busied herself, but she found her thoughts drifting out with the dragons, imaging the freedom of flying up and up into the clouds, and then coming back to their Weyrs, breaking into song to soothe the sheltered beasts.

"_High and free, high and free,_

_The sky your proper domain._

_With wings of power your watch you keep,_

_To guard the denizens of Pern, and me._

_All colours, come, come to birth,_

_Learn to flame and go between._

_With wings of power and eyes so keen,_

_Burn the Thread and prove your worth."_

It was one of the small songs she had written out for Viman, one from a generation ago when dragons had been a rare occurrence here in the area looking to Fort Weyr for protection, a protection that had not been needed, and according to some would never be needed again.

"_Free and high, free and high,_

_Fly over time to guard us all._

_With wings of power and guiding mind,_

_Fly here, this Pass's Thread to defy._"

That last verse was never written down, and she had not written it for Viman, but she was puzzled as to why he had not known anything about the deep secrets of their family. Both she and Porgrun had questioned him discreetly, and Viman had not known about the dragons landing every twenty five turns on their journey forward into time.

Coming back to the house, Kaval looked closely at her, and shook his head in sympathy.

"Don't make any sense why people think we're not linked to dragons, even if we ain't riders," he said cryptically, and Andova took her blushing self to the bathing rooms and emerged with clean hair and skin, pimpled with cold, and walked briskly around the teaching rooms, tidying up, putting away the wooden toys in the stone chests. She uncovered a glow basket and checked the window sills, brushing them clean and closing the stone shutters.

Coming back into the main rooms, she found Falla hunched over her embroidery. It seemed to Andova that the girl very rarely set a stitch, and the fabric was puckered and grubby in the wooden hoop. Her work basket was messy and she picked desultorily at the threads.

"Are you all right?" Andova asked gently. "Shall I help you with your basket?"

"I thought Danva would sit with me more," Falla said in an unhappy voice.

"He has a lot of tasks to do. We all have tasks, Falla. Why don't you come into the kitchen and see if mother can find you something to do, to occupy you until Danva comes back? Let me bring your basket, at least it's warm in there."

"My parents wouldn't let me sit in the kitchen. They had a nice front room."

"Well, and so do we," Andova said, stifling her irritation. "But it's for guests."

"You never entertained that healer in there."

Andova considered that, and shook her head.

"You're right, we never did. I wonder if he would have enjoyed being in there? It's so stiff and formal, with the fine china we mustn't touch!"

She picked up Falla's basket and embroidery, and helped the young woman to walk to the kitchen.

"You should try and stand up straighter," she said. "Don't walk all hunched over like that."

"I can feel the baby dragging on me," Falla said in her little girl voice.

"We'd better get the midwife in to take a look, then," Andova said but Falla shrank away from her at once.

"I don't like her! She's so - abrupt - I like your voice - it's quieter."

"Then I'll attend with her, shall I? Hello mother, can Falla sit in the corner here?"

"Of course. Can you cut some vegetables for me, dear?"

Andova sat with her cousin's wife, untangling the threads in her basket, talking to her, although it was laboured, because Falla had no opinions of her own that Andova could discern, no thoughts at all of the future or even of the past.

When Danva came in, Falla's face lit up like a child, and Danva came over and kissed her fondly, complimented her on the amount of vegetables she had cut, and swept her away to their own quarters. None of the women left in the kitchen commented on it, but Andova was sure she was not the only one with an angry frown on her face as she finished the vegetables and put them to boil, tidied the carelessly dropped pieces to go into the compost bins, and took the embroidery back to the main rooms with the neatened basket.

"That's not yours?" her father asked from where he was sitting, legs outstretched, watching Bryne and Rostoya bickering over laying the fireplace. It was too warm to light the fire, but the boys arranged the twigs and branches in a pleasing pattern.

"It's Falla's."

"Come and sit down," her father invited, and she perched on the couch beside him, and he ran an affectionate hand over her hair.

"She's carrying it badly," Andova said abruptly.

"Yes, I know. I think - I think I might ask you to go to Fort Hold, to the Healer Hall, and ask for some advice."

"Me? Me go? To the Healer Hall?"

Kaval laughed at the way her voice squeaked up the octaves.

"Of course you! You're the one who seems to have an instinctive understanding of the healing arts. Would you like that?"

Andova watched her brothers, aware that others were coming into the main room. She was older than all her siblings, more of an age with her cousins, and often felt isolated.

"Yes I would like it," she said at last. "When would I go?"

"I'll arrange it. I'll write to the Weyrleader as well, and ask for a timetable of Threadfall. Then maybe we can have a wee bit of a gather here in the valley before deep winter sets in. There's a lot of crafted work we could get together, and some of the surplus food and drink to trade. It would be nicer at a gather."

"A gather! We're going to have a gather!" Rostoya shrieked, and for once Kaval laughed instead of admonishing them, and Andova wondered if the flight of the mating dragons had anything to do with the more relaxed atmosphere in the hold that evening and over the next few days as she put a bundle together and looked forward eagerly to going to Fort Hold with some of the men of the valley as escort.


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry it's been such a long time between updates, but I should be able to post more regularly now. Pern is the trademark creation of Anne McCaffrey but we can add our little rays of light on the edges. Please tell me if I am straying too far out of canon.

Andova had her bags packed for several seven-days before a suitable escort was found for her journey. She spent time with the old aunties as well, listening to them, writing down anything new, singing to them and hearing and writing down some old variants of the songs they sang around the dining table. Porgrun had started her on that task and she enjoyed the preparation, scraping the hides to get a smooth finish and penning carefully on the ruled lines. All these stories and songs went into the muniment room, enclosed between boards and fine muslin cloth. No one had any idea what muniment was, but it had been carried down from an older age, and always been used in this branch of the family.

"Why don't we go over and visit Viman's family?" Smola asked as she watched Andova washing her hands after handling the old records. "I mean - they are supposed to be descended from the same couple as us, aren't they?"

"So the family records say," Andova admitted. "I don't know much about them - perhaps there was a quarrel?"

"It would be nice to visit somewhere else," Smola continued in a wistful voice as she followed her sister. "I don't complain, Anna, but the tasks here - they're endless, aren't they, and all to do again and again."

"We all feel like that," Andova said sympathetically.

"But you do get out and about."

Andova paused and looked at her young sister. Together with her inability to grasp numerals, Smola was clumsy in her movements, her sewing was a disaster and her sense of dress non-existent.

"Are you getting those headaches again, love?"

"Yes. I get wiggly lines in my eyes and have to lie down."

"I'll ask at Healer Hall, if they have anything to help."

Andova was frowning, however, as they joined the other women in the kitchen to prepare a meal. They had had four hundred Turns of peace and prosperity on Pern, yet sometimes it seemed to her that their society had in fact gone backwards. There was too much fragmentation of families to smaller and smaller holds because the Lords Holder wanted more and more labour on things like the spreading of woodland for luxury goods instead of charcoal and firewood, and going with that expansion, exerting heavy tithing on the smaller holds .

"Falla isn't here, mother?"

"No, she's taken to her bed. The midwife tuts over her, but it's no use doing that, she just reduces the girl to a weeping mess, and that doesn't help."

"All she wants is for Danva to be with her all the time," one of the other girls said spitefully. "And he's always too busy with other things, poking his nose in where it's not wanted."

"Why do you say that?" Smola asked. "He's the eldest son of the next generation, of course he needs to know about the workings of the hold."

The girl tittered. "And Falla as the wife of the holder? That will be a fine sight!"

"Fortunately, I will not be there to see it," Kaval said from the doorway, coming into the kitchen. "Your escort is here, daughter, come along with me."

Andova was only too pleased to put down the paring knife and follow him. She could tell by his fast walk he was cross, but then he slowed and smiled at her as she caught up with him.

"And they never think that if you marry a worthy young man, you will be the leader of the hold, do they?"

Andova blinked. "Me?"

"Is that - _me, marry_ - or - _me, leader_?"

Andova laughed. "Both, father! I haven't noticed the young men queuing up for me recently!"

"It's only nine Turns into the Pass, daughter, it will take time for society to settle back down into a proper pattern. Now then. There are some things I want you to take to Fort."

She nodded agreement to that, collecting her bag and her sensible shoes and cloak to put on over the travel gear her mother had found for her. The leather skirt and jacket might be old, but they were still best quality, and together with her long boots and thick knitted stockings would keep her warm on the open wagon ride. They would stop at minor holds along the way at nightfall, and be ever vigilant for any sign of Thread.

Kaval unexpectedly dropped a kiss on her forehead before she set out.

"Be good, daughter, and find out all you can," he said cryptically, and Andova watched from the wagon until they dipped out of sight of the house, and then sat back with a sigh and a shake of the head; her father had deep-laid plans at the best of times, but it would be nice to know, occasionally, what he actually expected of her.

There was a lot to see on the journey and Andova took full advantage of the gossip eddying around the group to build a picture of a bigger world that the valley where she had grown up. In that valley there were three substantial holdings and several scattered farms, and she had travelled up and down it most of her life, but this route was new to her, coming up and over the shoulder of the hills.

Several times she had jumped off the wagon to help lead the animals over tricky patches and one of the teamsters, Mendal, had given her a half size whip, laughing at her, but grateful when she mended their cuts and scratches with some of the ointment from the hold.

"That's a strange little valley you come from," Mendal said one evening. "Is there trade down there?"

"Pottery and foodstuffs, the same as most places, I suppose," Andova replied cautiously. "We don't get out much, there's enough to do in our own place."

Mendal nodded. "So I see on my travels, m'dear, most people stay in their own places. Harpers now, they travel all over, and so do some of the Healers, I would suppose."

"And the dragonriders?"

"Ah now. You'd think they can go anywhere? Not so, they stay in their Weyrs and guard those that look to them."

"Do they never exchange places?"

Mendal thought about that.

"I'm not from Benden, where the dragons continued, so I wouldn't know their traditions. I come from High Reaches which was abandoned. Strange haunted place, that Weyr."

"Why d'you say that?"

"They were all abandoned, but no one ever took them over, did they? They do say there were lights and such seen up on the Weyr during the interval."

"Would you want to colonise them?" Andova said, trying to divert Mendal's train of thought. "Big caves, full of windrow after being abandoned, they must be impossible to heat. And you have to carry all the food and water up to those weyrs for man and dragon."

Mendal laughed in delight. "Trust a woman to see the difficulties! Benden is warmed from the bowels of the earth, so they say, I don't know if any of the others are as well. But there's plenty of firewood around now, and some new seams of Crom coal opened."

Andova wrote herself a note about that conversation, and by the end of the journey she had placed Mendal and his family in High Reaches, knowing they did not come from the same area as her female ancestress. Very few families had a proper knowledge of their ancestors, she had found. Most people didn't care, and although they could name their grandparents, and where they lived, they did not want to know about history. In a way Andova admired them for it, living only in the present, but she felt it lacked respect in some strange way, not to want to know the history of their world.

"Fort's up on the next ridge," Mendal told her, and she strained forward on the seat. The roadway had become much easier, and now she could see the great ramparts of the hold on the hillside, smoke smudging into the sky from its many chimneys.

"Healer Hall is below it, I'll leave you with a householder I know of, one I mentioned to your father. You've enough money for a room?"

"Yes, my father provided for me, thank you. Where's the Harper Hall?"

"Next to the Healers. Big places, both of those Halls, and there's many a small business around and about that's grateful for such a concentration of people needing food and clothes and diversions."

Andova nodded, looking eagerly around her. She had already noted the prosperity of the area, with a steady income from Halls and Holds and indeed the Weyr on an even higher spur of land. T'ron was Weyrleader, one of the Oldtimers, but she had not heard good reports of him. It was not her place, she reminded herself, to be critical of those she knew nothing about.

They drew up in the yard of a small stone built house. Mendal helped Andova down, holding her lightly as she adjusted to the ground again, smiling at her.

"There now! Worse after a sea voyage, they do tell me, but I wouldn't know about that. Here's Perdin with his good lady. These are your goods - careful with those, lads, for pity's sake, don't break all the lady's goods!"

Perdin's wife introduced herself briskly as Sola, and led Andova into the stone built house which extended further than she had expected, being dug into the rock face.

"Ah, and you'll be surprised at how far back the cellars go," Sola said complacently. "I've a lock and key for this one, we'll stow your goods in here. Thank you, Mendal."

Mendal lingered for a while, then he was gone on with his own goods and Perdin shook his head.

"Too flighty by half, that boy!"

Andova was surprised at the description because Mendal had not seemed either young or flighty to her, but an agreeable companion, knowledgeable and entertaining.

"So you are bringing things to show the Lord Holder, or to be Craftmarked?" Perdin asked.

"Some small things for the Lord Holder, yes, as part of our tithe, but nothing to be Craftmarked, we have no one who trained in a Crafthall," Andova replied. "I have questions to ask at Healer Hall, though, because we haven't had a proper Healer through in many Turns, and there's a pregnant girl with problems."

"You expect Healer Hall to answer those questions?" Perdin asked. "You can't just walk up there and ask!"

"Whyever not?" Andova replied. "They're Healers, aren't they?"

Perdin looked doubtfully at his wife. "What d'you think, Sola?"

"I think we'll deal with that tomorrow," his wife said firmly. "I've a nice plate of dinner for you, Andova, and hot water enough for a bath. You look exhausted."

Andova had to acknowledge the truth of that, and allowed herself to be fed and cosseted and then left in peace in the small guest bedroom under the eaves, resolving, in her last thoughts before sleep, that she would walk up to Healer Hall and ask her questions with or without the help of these kindly people.


	7. Chapter 7

Descriptions of Healer Hall are sketchy, so I have just imagined what such an ancient place would look like.

Andova woke early the next day because this room faced east whereas hers at home faced south, and a beam of sunlight had managed to find a chink in the firmly closed shutters.

She opened her eyes and lay looking around the room, mentally cataloguing it for description at home. Stone walls hidden by plaster, she decided. A wooden floor with two rugs, this bed, a stone wash stand, and the window where the sunbeam had penetrated and was dancing motes across the room.

Coming to the window and opening it, Andova peered out into a scene of activity. People were already passing along the roadway up towards the Halls and the Hold where the flag of the Lord Holder streamed in the wind. The sky was clear, and she remembered her letters to the Weyr Leader concerning the timetable, and the Lord Holder concerning the tithe; those might have to go by carrier up to the distant heights.

Andova dressed quickly, brushed her long hair and plaited it, coiled it neatly and tied it with a ribbon, and then she was descending the stairs.

Perdin was standing on the threshhold talking to someone outside. He glanced at her and gave her a nod, but gave no indication he was going to let her through, so Andova turned into the kitchen where Sola was preparing the early meal. Without being asked, Andova swung the kettle around onto the hob, and quickly gathered up some used plates and dishes and mugs, found the sink and put them in for washing.

"Thanks! We had two travellers go through late last night, and they've just left," Sola said. "I hope they didn't disturb you?"

"I never heard a thing," Andova said truthfully as she washed up briskly and set the dishes to dry. "Do a lot of people use your cot, Sola?"

"If they've been on a long journey, then yes they do, because by the time you get to this end of the road, you're weary enough not to want to push on."

Andova wondered if it would be indiscreet at this point to ask how much Sola charged, remembering the full purse her father had given her. Perhaps it would be better to settle up at the end of the visit, however long or short that might be.

"What are you plans for today?" Perdin asked when they were eating.

"I've letters from my father to the Weyr Leader and Lord Holder, that should be sent. And I need to go to Healer Hall."

"The letter should be easy, there's always deliveries of some sort or another," Perdin said. "As to Healer Hall - "

"We'll walk up there together," Sola said firmly. "I know some of the women there, and you can ask your questions to them, I daresay, not bother the Healers."

Andova nodded meekly as she collected the dishes together and then went to fetch her letters, checking the seal. An ancient family seal, a knot of twisted work, distinctive, and if broken, almost impossible to match up again. The seals were unbroken, and she came down with them, and her own list of questions for the Healers. Sola gave her an approving smile.

"That's a nice costume. Not too rich a showing."

Andova did not comment on that. Her hold was not rich, and she had no better clothes than the ones she had on. She followed Sola who had picked up a covered basket and both women set off briskly towards the lower yards of the two Halls.

"Do you hear much of the singing from your cot?" Andova asked.

"Oh, sometimes you hear it if the wind's in the right direction, but I take no notice."

There was a drum beating, and Andova cocked her head to listen to the message.

"And those as well, noisy things, any hour of the day and night, and when it's drum practice, you could hardly hear yourself speak up near the Tower."

Andova nodded. She had caught the words _dragon, message_ and _north_ and wondered if she would see a dragon close up. That would be thrilling news to take home.

"What did you do before Thread, Sola? Did you still have the messengers going to and from?"

"Yes, but in fewer numbers. We have a small holding higher in the hills, where we used to grow some food to sell. That all stopped when the Thread fell of course."

"Of course," Andova murmured, determined not to make an argument with this self-opinionated woman. The corollary of Thread was dragons flaming, and even a small field should be safe enough to continue in cultivation, provided a small stone shelter could be built, and having seen the masses of loose rough stone lying around, that would not prove difficult.

They stopped at the runner station and Andova paid for the two letters to be sent that day, and then with that duty discharged she followed Sola to the lower yards of the Healer Hall. There seemed to be a lot of activity, and she wondered if it was to do with the drum message she had heard, and where that was being relayed, fancying it passing across Pern like a roll of thunder from Tower to Tower. There were men with Harper knots in the yards, but Sola steered her towards a cot where she assured the girl she would have answers to her queries about childbirth.

"_Keep the girl in bed..." "No no, she should be active, to keep the blood flowing..." "Blood tea..." "Plenty of vegetables, well stewed..." "Let nature take its course, if the babe isn't meant to be..." _

Andova smiled and nodded and thanked everyone, and when Sola was comfortably seated with a pot of _klah_ on the table, she wandered out into the yards, explaining she had never seen so many people gathered together. That set them off with talk of gathers before Threadfall, and Andova made her escape. She set off determinedly across the yards, carrying her bag of remedies and recipes, trying to look, as Porgrun had advised, as if she was on a duty trip.

"Andova? Is that you, cousin?"

She halted, because Viman was coming towards her, smiling uncertainly. He still wore a journeyman's knot, she noted uncharitably.

"I've come to ask for some advice for Falla's pregnancy."

"Oh, the midwives usually gather to gossip back there."

"I don't want a midwife, Viman, we have one of those. I want to speak to a Healer. How about you? How's your expertise on childbirth?"

He flushed.

"I never studied that."

"Then I'll find someone who has, thank you kindly."

"They're expecting company. That's why there're so many Harpers here."

"I don't want a Harper, I need to consult with a healer. That one - he wears the knot of a Master."

She set out walking, and Viman almost ran to catch up with her.

"That's Master Healer Oldive! You can't speak to him!"

"Oh, just watch me," Andova said grimly, her temper thoroughly roused. She skirted one group of people, and made her way to the man on the lower steps who was consulting a written scrip. He had one shoulder higher than the other, giving him a bird-like aspect as he watched her come.

"May I help you, my dear?" his voice was gentle, and he waved Viman back as the journeyman attempted to snatch at Andova's arm.

"I hope so, Master," she replied respectfully. "I have a letter of introduction from my father - about a girl in our hold - "

"I had hoped it would be about you," Master Oldive replied. "You are not the one seeking a place in the Hall?"

"Me? No, Master, not at all, and none of our hold members has any desire to be a healer. So my father said I must come and consult with Healers about Falla."

"I think we have time before our visitors arrive. Do come in, my dear. You can come also, journeyman Viman, since you appear to know this young lady."


	8. Chapter 8

Andova followed obediently into the main hall. This room was huge, she realised, trying not to gawp as she took in the way it was half built into the rockface, the many decorations around it, and the highly polished tables and floor.

"Now then - this little fireplace I think - the stone strikes chill, does it not? How do you manage in your hold, my dear?"

"We have woven hangings in the main rooms, Master," Andova replied. "The women and girls of every generation weave them, or knot them, showing things that were common in that generation."

"And in your generation - you and your young companions will place Thread at the heart of the hangings?"

"Yes, Master, I suppose we must."

"And dragons," Master Oldive said with a twinkling smile. "Don't let us forget the dragons."

"No one in our hold forgets those, Master, nor ever has."

He cocked his head and studied her face.

"Now that is an interesting thing to say. And your branch of the family, Viman, do they hold dragons in high regard?"

The younger journeyman looked uncomfortable.

"No, Master Oldive, no more than most people did before the beginning of the Pass. I don't know - our two branches quarrelled a hundred Turns ago, so it's said, and although we live in the same valley - my grandfather is one to bear a grudge."

Master Oldive shook his head. "That is a pity, young man, and one you should address in your own generation. But now, my dear - yes what is it?"

Another Healer had come up to them.

"Master Harper Robinton would like a word, Master."

"Send him in here then, I won't be long."

"He should be attended to, Master?"

Master Oldive frowned at him. "I will see him when I have spoken to this young lady, Drinan. Go and find something for the Master Harper to eat, and keep him away from the wineskins if you can."

He was smiling and shaking his head, and Andova sank back into her chair, when she had been going to leave.

"Explanations, please, and Viman, take notes."

Once launched, Andova gave careful precise details of Falla, not just of her pregnancy, but of the girl herself and her relations with the family she had wed into. Andova was aware someone else had joined them, an elderly man and a young woman of about her own age, but she was concentrating on giving a fair judgement as her father always required. She ceased and looked expectantly at Master Healer Oldive.

"You seem to have summed it up admirably, my dear, and unfortunately there is nothing I can do to help you."

"Nothing at all?"

"I can tell you have the greatest care of this child - yes, I call Falla a child - and the one within, but until she comes to terms with what her marriage means, she will continue to fail."

Andova sat back with a sigh, shaking her head, biting her lip as she considered his words.

"That's a little harsh, surely, Master Oldive?" the Harper girl asked. "Surely there are remedies to - to - give her strength?"

"She has no strength in herself," Andova replied. "She is a child still, and her family told her she would be marrying a loving man who would be everything her romantic dreams foretold. But Danva isn't a man to be sitting with his wife every minute of the day, he has duties like all of us, and still has a group of male friends."

Master Healer Oldive nodded in agreement.

"What I can give you is a harmless herbal infusion which you must make her believe will help," he said. "Can you do that?"

"Make her believe? That it will settle the child, and make her feel stronger, you mean? Yes, I think I can - or at least - someone - "

Master Oldive held up a hand.

"You and no other, Mistress Andova, because from you she will believe it. You have come here, a long journey, I would think, especially to hear from me what a Healer can do. That is all I can do for you. But you must make her believe."

"I will do so. She prefers my company to that of our midwife anyway. Our midwife has a tendency to - er - be abrupt - having birthed six of her own and helped out for a lifetime in the hold."

Master Oldive laughed. "And who could blame her at becoming a wee bit impatient with a girl who weeps and wails and bemoans her lot? In a family, I suspect, that is strongly territorial and very close knit? Yes?"

"We have been in that valley for hundreds of Turns," Andova admitted. "Since our ancestor Vikna came back from High Reaches with his bride and they began to farm."

"Was Vikna a farmer?" Viman asked with a frown.

"No, he was a mercenary guard, he'd drifted up there with convoys after the end of the Eighth Pass," Andova replied. "He married a girl called Andoya from a family that was also very close-knit and close-mouthed, seemingly."

"You seem to know your family history very well, my dear," the elderly Harper said. "Do you have songs to recall it?"

"Songs and stories, yes we do."

"Could you let me have some of those songs, perhaps? We Harpers grow tired of our own songs sometimes. You were singing something the other night, Journeyman Viman, which you said came from your home."

Andova glared at him, and Viman flushed uncomfortably.

"Er - yes - it was one Andova taught me," he said feebly. "I never said it was my own, Andova, I never would say that!"

She could clearly see from the Harper girl's face that he had said just exactly that, but she bottled down her annoyance and smiled at the Harper.

"We do have songs, but home-grown, just about the valley, and the farming we do."

"And about the bold adventurer who sired your line?" the Harper asked. "Escorting convoys in a time of Threadfall is not easy, you just ask some of our carriers who have experienced it for a few short years. Your man Vikna grew up knowing nothing more."

"It was fifty Turns after the end of the Pass," Andova corrected him. "The land was beginning to settle." She glanced at Viman, who looked angry and uncomfortable again.

Andova looked away from him, deliberately, to stop herself lashing out, and caught Master Healer Oldive watching her. She cocked an eyebrow at him, a habit she had at home, and he smiled back at her.

"If nothing else offers in your valley, my dear Mistress Andova, I would be pleased to have you come to Healer Hall for a few years to learn. What would your father say about that?"

"He wouldn't hold me back if I thought that was my life's course," she replied slowly.

"And do you think so?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't have to stay here all my life?"

"Of course not. Learning what you can, and after that, deciding. Will your cousin Danva inherit the hold?"

"He's the eldest man in his generation, but my father is head of the family."

"He should take the hold," Viman said. "That's the task for the eldest son of the generation."

Andova said nothing, and said it so eloquently both the Harpers started laughing.

"And another young woman who thinks men make too many decisions, Menolly! Why don't you come down to the Harper Hall and let us have some of your songs, if you have finished here?"

Master Healer Oldive stood up, and Andova was aware other Healers were hovering.

"I'm sorry, Master, I've taken up too much of your time - "

"Healing can never take up too much of my time, my dear, but I must speak with these others. There's always sickness somewhere in this world of ours."

Andova allowed the Harper girl Menolly to lead her out of the Hall.

"I must tell Sola where I am going," Andova said, and found the woman still gossiping.

"Don't be late for the evening meal," she admonished. "And there's a pack train going back tomorrow near enough to your valley."

"I need to wait for a reply from the Weyrleader. Am I not welcome to stay with you?"

Sola frowned at her.

"A reply! That could be days away."

"My father needs a response sooner than that. Thank you, Sola, I will not be late."

The two young women walked away, and Menolly shook her head.

"She reminds me of Dunca, I stayed with her when I first came to Harper Hall."

"A girl Harper is - rather unusual?"

Menolly laughed. "Very unusual, so they tell me, but that's because in the last four hundred Turns Pern has stultified."

"Um - I thought that too, but it's not something I voice aloud."

"You could shout it from the rooftops at Harper Hall and no one would deny you - just a minute - "

She was listening to the drum roll, and Andova listened as well.

"Can you understand that?" Menolly asked. "And if you can, why can you?"

Andova flushed. "We had a drummer once, in the valley, so it's said. The drum rolls are written down, and sometimes we use them to accompany the songs."

"_Drummer, beat, and piper, blow_?"

"Yes, that one. And the teaching ballads. We don't have a Harper, but there's nearly always one or two who can hold a tune."

"And the words are written down?"

Andova looked uncomfortable but could not deny it, but Menolly did not comment as she guided the girl into the yards of the Harper Hall where they were assaulted by a flying cloud of coloured beings all wanting to land on Menolly.


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you for the kind comments - if you are enjoying the story then I must be keeping in the right path - mutters - _turns for years, turns for years_...

Andova barely stopped herself shrieking aloud as the whirling cloud of firelizards resolved themselves into a recognisable group of seven. They seemed to be dancing in the air above Menolly, swirling and reforming in an acrobatic display.

"There now! I told them I'd be back soon, and no doubt they've been chased out of their usual haunts by something."

"Nothing could frighten them, surely?" Andova still stood with her head tipped back, watching the firelizards, and as she spoke one descended slowly to eyelevel, allowing her to bring her neck out of its painful crick. She found herself staring into eyes of opalescent colour and tried to fix the image to show Porgrun so that he could translate it into slipware. The dragon took off again with a screech and disappeared in the blink of an eye and Menolly turned to look accusingly at Andova.

"What did you do that for?"

"Me? I didn't do anything! I was admiring it. What a beauty!"

"That's her name. Beauty. She's my queen. She shot me an image of flames and heat and interpreted it as either - " she jerked her thumb up towards the sky, "or dragons flaming firelizards. What did she pick out of your mind?"

Andova rubbed the back of her neck and declined to answer, staring at the other firelizards, and suddenly Beauty was back, hovering in front of her, and Andova carefully pictured her uncle lovingly shaping the pots, peeling the silhouettes from the moulds and placing them, and then the finished products. Beauty gave an approving _churr_ and landed on Andova's shoulder, wrapping her tail around her throat and peering into her face, one tiny paw on the top of her left ear. She warbled a few interrogative notes and Andova obligingly pictured the rows of pots ready for sale.

The other firelizards did not seem to have taken any notice of the byplay, dancing happily around Menolly, but the girl was still staring at Andova.

"That's a pretty powerful imaging you did," she said slowly. "Have there ever been Searches in your valley?"

"Searches for what?" Andova asked as, greatly daring, she scratched Beauty's eyeridges. "For dragon riders, you mean? Not since the Pass began, and we look to Fort, not Benden, so they wouldn't have come looking so far south."

"I suppose that's right. I think they've missed out, though. Come through here, and tell me about your songs, if you would?"

Andova looked around the yards, at the boys and men hurrying about their business, the sweet notes of someone practicing, the not so sure sound of someone going over and over a singing exercise.

"Well - they aren't really songs," she prevaricated. "Just little rhymes to help the evening out."

"Those are songs," Menolly said firmly, taking her by the arm and leading her to the great double doors of the hall. "In here - oh, Master Domick - this is Andova - she has some new songs for Master Robinton."

"More songs - more twiddles more like," the older man said in a sour voice. "Another girl harper to plague us, Menolly?"

"I don't know - do you play and sing, Andova?"

Andova could hear mischief in the girl's voice, but curtseyed respectfully to the Master.

"I do both, Master Domick, but not to the standard your students must achieve in the Hall."

"Hmmph." He stalked away and Menolly shook her head.

"Right answer to such a naughty question. Come through here."

They entered a side room with a sandtable set at a convenient height for writing, and Menolly picked up a gitar.

"That little thing Viman was singing - I wrote down what I could remember - is this right?"

She sang it through, in a gentle voice, but true on all the notes.

"_High and free, high and free,_

_The sky your proper domain._

_With wings of power your watch you keep,_

_To guard the denizens of Pern, and me._

_All colours, come, come to birth,_

_Learn to flame and go between._

_With wings of power and eyes so keen,_

_Burn the Thread and prove your worth."_

Andova nodded. "That's right."

"And the final verse?"

Andova blinked. "Final verse? That's all there is of that song."

"The music doesn't say so," Menolly replied. "I wrote the tune out, and there are subtle differences in each verse ending, and to resolve it, there should be a third, ending on a more triumphant final note."

"There are no more verses," Andova said flatly. "If you want some of our songs, I'll write them out for you, and hum the tune, but that's all."

Menolly put the gitar down, staring at her, and Andova shrugged.

"You have things in Harper Hall I'm sure you aren't allowed to speak about, and it's the same in our family. There are things we don't speak about."

Beauty had accompanied them into the room, and suddenly she inflated her throat and "sang" the tune, but with the last final note to complete it. Menolly looked from the firelizard to the angrily defiant holder girl, and shook her head.

"It's not up to me to probe. If you won't tell, then you won't, but there aren't supposed to be any more secrets in this Pass, not since we nearly lost everything in the Long Interval. Four hundred Turns, and things were forgotten or brushed over, or distorted, and that was why Lessa went back in time to collect the Old Timers."

"It was heroic."

"It was mad," Menolly replied. "Mad but heroic. They wrote the Question Song so that she would recognise it."

"And the tapestry at Ruatha. My father's seen that."

"When was he at Ruatha? Is he from there? No, you said you were all from Fort. But Ruatha is part of Fort."

"He was there as a young man, before he settled back into the hold."

"So not everyone stays in their valley and keeps their eyes on the ground?"

"That's not fair! The work has to be done, and done well, before there's time for relaxation and gathers and such."

"I'm sorry. Yes I am, because my father was such a man, duty first, and pleasure later."

"There's been times, in the fields, when my father pauses, and leans on the plough, and looks out at the world, and he says he finds it very beautiful," Andova said coldly. "Have we finished here?"

She turned and walked out into the main hall and was considerably embarrassed to find Master Harper Robinton there.

"I did wonder what the last note would be," he said mildly. "Thank you, Beauty."

"You would have known straight away," Andova said hotly. "You're the Master Harper. A finishing chord must be something you know instinctively."

"Actually, it is, my dear Andova. So why didn't you make up some words for the final verse? Why leave it hanging when you must have known Harpers would question it?"

"No one's ever commented on it before."

"Because everyone in your valley, or at least in your branch of the family, knows the final verse," Robinton said at once. "Is it really such a secret?"

"You would need to speak to my father about it."

"And maybe I will," Robinton replied amiably. "But in the meantime, won't you join us for the midday meal? I promise no one will moither you about your valley."

She accepted his peaceful intent, and came to the guest table where to her surprise Mendal was seated. He stood up at once and smiled at her.

"Hullo! I didn't expect to meet you in here - I've a cousin who sings, so I came to see how he's getting on."

"They wanted some of the valley songs," Andova replied. "I thought you would have gone on with the convoy."

He shrugged as they sat down. "Decided they had enough guards, and Thread not due for a while. Did you send that request to the Weyr?"

"Yes. I want to wait until I get a reply, but it may not be soon."

Mendal served her deftly from the plates of food. "I doubt that too. Maybe we could ask some of the other dragon riders."

"What dragon riders?"

"There's a whole group of them due here soon, so it's said, something about a sickness in a couple of the Weyrs, something they've not encountered before. Probably picked up something nasty from those old abandoned caves! Goodness knows what was living in them before the Old Timers came forward!"

Andova laughed. "More likely that the ones coming forward brought a sickness that was eradicated over the Turns we've been without them!"

Mendal paused and looked at her. "Did you mention that to the Healer when you saw him?"

"No I didn't . I've only just thought of it now."

He nodded. "It's as good a theory as the other way around, though, isn't it? Why not? Me, I prefer to think it was the nasty things that might lurk in the caves. Never could abide caves. There was one near where I grew up, where all the children dared each other. Stupid practice."

"We have a tree in the valley where all the boys challenge each other to climb, and carve their initials," Andova said with a smile.

"And you put yours higher than theirs," Mendal said accurately.

"As high as my arm could stretch," Andova admitted, and they laughed together, and talked about other things as they finished the meal, Andova wondering who else would be asking her awkward questions about their family and its secrets.


	10. Chapter 10

We are starting to get to the climax of the story - thank you for hanging in there with me so far. In response to the query about the firelizards - only Beauty seems to be around Andova.

No one came to bother Andova in the afternoon, however. She found a quiet corner and sat writing down what Master Healer Oldive had told her. She found time to ask about eyeglasses and discovered there were glass workshops.

"Is that for someone you know?" Mendal asked.

"My sister. She can't see very far and of course in straining her eyes she gets headaches. I thought they might be able to grind a glass to make things bigger."

"They probably can, once they've got over the rush of commissions people think they need," Mendal said comfortably. "Now look there - firelizards - they're becoming much more common, so I'm told. You need to go to the beaches to find them, so they say."

"No beaches near us," Andova said regretfully. "They do make pretty pictures, though."

He stared at her. "You can speak to them?"

"Well - it's not speech. It's pictures. You make a clear picture for them, and they might be able to make one back."

"Amazing. Dragons can talk, though?"

"To their riders, their bonded partners, yes. Not to anyone else - unless they choose to - I don't know much about them!"

"Nor does anyone else," Mendal said with a laugh and a shake of the head. "But there seem to be plenty of those pretty little creatures around here."

They sat in companionable silence watching the firelizards darting around. Up at the Weyr there would be a Watch wher, but that was another difficult concept, as Andova acknowledged to herself. A distorted form of dragon life. Living in the dark, coming out at night, hiding in the daytime. What sort of man would take those for companions?

"Look," Mendal said quietly, touching her arm, and Andova looked up and saw a flight of dragons coming out of the north. At first they were no more than dots, growing larger.

"Why haven't they travelled_ between_?" she asked. "That's what they do best!"

"Not if they have sick people on board," Menolly answered from where she had come up to them. "I've come to beg your pardon, Andova, for pushing at you today."

"That's all right, I shouldn't have been so touchy," she replied at once with a smile. "Why should they bring sick people? Won't it spread the infection?"

"It might do. They'll come into isolation, though, and the dragons will flash _between_ to clean themselves. Nothing could survive that."

They watched for a while, and became aware that two dragons had come from _between_ and were landing at Healer Hall.

"No one sick on those, but they might be carrying a Healer with experience," Menolly said. "From the past."

"Did they bring their healers, then?" Mendal asked, and Menolly nodded.

"Everyone from each Weyr came, except for the very lowest of the drudges. I suppose they just woke up one morning and - everyone was gone."

"And they were released to go back to their homes?" Mendal asked. "Sounds a bit hit and miss to me, if you don't mind me saying so!"

"I haven't been close enough to an Old Timer to ask," Menolly replied dryly. "I wouldn't want to pass the time of day with most of them!"

"It must have been a shock, to come forward and find everything so changed," Andova said thoughtfully. "People they knew all gone, and the world changed so much."

Menolly sighed and shook her head. "I know. We shouldn't be too quick to condemn them, but really - "

She bent over the notes Andova had been writing out, asking then about the healers they had in the valley, agreeing that most women in a hold would have knowledge of remedies for cuts and bruises and fevers.

"Child birth is still all too dangerous," Mendal said sombrely. "In all the ages we've been on this world, we still ask women to take the risks of it."

"Since it's the only process we know for producing children, then it will remain a risk," Menolly replied with a smile. "I have to go - what are you doing for the rest of the day, Andova?"

"I want to go back to the Healer Hall and ask about a few others things, from a journeyman or someone. It seems a shame to waste time when I might not be here again."

Mendal offered to escort her, and they came out of the Harper Hall to see the newly arrived dragons taking off again, winging upwards.

"They'll be going to Fort Weyr, maybe," Mendal said. "Take a rest before they go home. They might be able to flash _between_ and lose no time, but it must be pleasant to visit."

Andova agreed as they came to the Healer Hall and she enquired about eyeglasses, and whether they would help her sister's headaches.

"This is so interesting," she said to Mendal. "I never had the chance to talk to people who train themselves in this sort of thing. In the valley, mostly, everyone knows as much as anyone else."

"Your notebook will be full. What will you do with the notes?"

"Write them out neatly and put them with other records," she said, and Mendal glanced at her.

"I'm not prying," he said mildly. "That valley of yours has been alone for too long, I think. It's become a habit to hide."

Andova laughed and shook her head.

"More likely, no one has any need to leave, all the work and all the pleasure we need is in the valley. It would take a seven day to walk from one end to the other, and there's always gossip to spread up and down between the holdings."

"I always liked the thought of what might be beyond the valleys," Mendal replied as they walked down towards the cot where Andova would spend another night. She hoped she would get the answer to her queries from the Weyr leader soon, and as she thought it, Mendal nudged her and pointed.

"That there is a dragon rider. See his mark? He comes from High Reaches, and he might have some knowledge of the Threadfall cycles you're after."

To Andova's horror, he put a hand under her elbow and marched her across to the dragon rider, who was handing over a parcel to one of the journeymen harpers.

"...and you'll have to make it last, this time - yes, what is it?"

He swung round and glared at them, but Mendal did not seem intimidated.

"This here is Mistress Andova, family name of Vikna," he said easily. "Would you have access to a Threadfall map?"

"A map of Threadfall? The Weyrleaders might have such, we just take to the air when Thread comes our way. Why would you want to know, on the ground? So long as you have your firecrews, we'll protect you."

"There's the matter of gathers," Mendal replied. "If the holders knew which days were Thread free, they could plan such a thing."

"I could ask, when I get back," the rider said. "I've never bothered with any maps, just fly with my dragon when there's a threat."

"Are you - did you come forward?" Andova asked, greatly daring.

"Yes I did, leaving everyone I knew behind. Excuse me."

He brushed past them and strode away, and the journeyman harper coughed in embarrassment.

"Sorry about that - he can be very touchy."

"Is he related to you?"

"No, not at all, he was bringing something for me, that's all."

He hurried away, and Andova watched him go.

"No secrets, Harper Menolly said, and that one is full of them."

"Yes. Illicit as well, I shouldn't wonder."

He escorted her to the cot and she came into the dining room to find two other people there, and the meal ready to be served.

"I was wondering if you'd be staying up at the Hall," Sola said. "You seem to be very friendly with that wagon driver?"

"He gave me escort down here from the Hall, yes," Andova said quietly. "Is there another convoy going out of here, do you know? Back to my home?"

"I doubt it," Sola said. "They don't go that way very often."

Andova nodded meekly, wondering if she could spare the money to hire a runner beast, because it was going to take a very long time to walk home.


	11. Chapter 11

Thank you for following the story so far - we are getting close to a finale!

Andova woke the next day to hear the drums beating again. Lying in her bed, she closed her eyes and followed what she could understand, although she suspected some of it might be in a special code, perhaps with messages harpers would understand.

Sighing, she climbed out of bed and washed and dressed. She had had disturbing dreams during the night, and suspected it was because she now fretted to get home and make sure Falla had not slipped further into her self-induced decline.

It would be nice to have some babies in the hold again, she thought. Her twin brothers were nearly ten, and there were a few younger children, but it was nice to have new generations growing up in the comfortable sprawling warren of their family home.

Thinking of that, she frowned suddenly. Mendal had used her family name to that High Reaches dragon rider, but perhaps he would not recognise it.

"And why should it be still be so secret? Is that what you were hinting at, father, with your sideways comments?" Andova said aloud in exasperation, and finished plaiting and coiling her hair, straightening the bedclothes and coming downstairs.

"You spoke to that dragon rider," Sola said angrily, fending her off at the doorway to the kitchen. "You're to go straight up to Healer Hall, you stupid girl."

Andova stared at her.

"What? Go up to the Hall? I was planning on setting out for home today - "

"Anyone who had contact with him has to go to the Hall," Perdin said more gently. "He fell ill in the night, and they think it's the same illness - they brought him back down to the Hall from the Weyr."

"I need to fetch my bags from my room, then," Andova said, struggling to be calm. "I feel perfectly all right."

"So did he, he said."

"He didn't seem all right yesterday," Andova said thoughtfully. "He was snappy and sharp, as if he had a headache or something."

She fetched her bags, thinking that Sola might want to burn all the bedding, a useless and extravagant gesture to her mind, but the woman shepherded her off the premises without another word, kind or otherwise. Andova set off up the hill again, fuming, wondering how she was going to get a message to her family.

With a whirr of wings Beauty was hovering in front of her, peering at her, and then settling on her shoulder.

"And good morning to you," Andova murmured, smelling the aftermath of a feast of raw meat on the firelizard's breath. "At least you did get some food, unlike me."

Beauty gave a chirrup, flew up and vanished _between_, and Andova sighed and plodded on up the slope. The gates to Healer Hall were open, she saw, and she paused just inside to look around and wonder who she was supposed to contact.

She gave a yelp of surprise when Beauty reappeared, holding something in her taloned feet. Andova automatically put out a hand, and closed it over a meatroll, still warm from the over by the feel of it.

"Oh! Clever girl! Thank you!"

They shared the roll, and Andova brushed crumbs from her dress. A journeyman healer was coming towards her, making shooing gestures.

"No one can come in! No one!"

"With the gates wide open like that, you wouldn't have thought so," Andova snapped. "I've been told I have to report here - I spoke to that dragon rider from High Reaches yesterday."

"How d'you know he was from High Reaches?"

"He showed the insignia of course."

The healer stared suspiciously at her, then gestured her to follow him, leading her around to a section where he almost pushed her through a door and left her.

Andova was beginning to feel angry all over again as she moved into the rooms. There was a strong smell of medicine in here, and she dumped her bag in a corner, pushing it under a chair where it should not be noticed. With Beauty still perched on her shoulder she went through two more doors before she found the source of the medicine, a room where several people lay on beds, and Master Healer Oldive stood by a table with his Healers, discussing the illness all around.

Someone nudged him and pointed, and he turned to face Andova.

"What are you doing here, my dear? I thought you would be on your way home - you'll have to stay here now - "

"I was told I had to come, because I spoke to a dragon rider who's fallen sick."

"Spoke to him? How close were you?"

Andova took several steps forward. "As close as this," she replied. "I didn't touch him, I didn't take anything from his hands, but since everyone is running around like headless wherries, they seem to think I might have caught the plague from him."

"This is no joke," one of the other Healers said sharply, but with fright in his voice. "It might be the plague again, we don't know yet."

"How long has the illness been in the Weyrs?" Andova asked impatiently. "Did the Old Timers bring it with them, or did they catch it when they arrived and were exposed to what is in effect a changed world. It might just as well be a different world, we've moved on four hundred Turns since they left their Weyrs."

"This is the most serious outbreak since they came forward," Master Healer Oldive admitted. "No, let Mistress Andova speak, she may not be a Healer, but she has sensible ideas."

"Maybe this time a few of them had head colds or something, and were a little bit weakened," Andova said, encouraged by his support. "That can happen with animals after a long and severe winter season, why not with men? And I expect a few dragon riders tried to hide it and fight Thread, and when they landed, tired and hungry and chilled, it would have caught hold more firmly."

Master Healer Oldive laughed softly, took a page from the table and handed it over to her. Andova read it quickly, and found her own points made. She looked at the Master Healer who nodded approvingly.

"I will be writing to your father, my dear, when this crisis is over," he said.

"This is the illness?" Andova asked, as she read further. "But I know this - at least - we know it in our family. It killed off a lot of people a hundred Turns ago, when we were living near High Reaches."

"Do you have remedies then?"

"Yes, in part. Warmth, nourishing thin soups, rest, and some of the herbs identified then that were helpful. The family brought roots with them when they moved back into this area."

"Does it kill?"

Andova looked up at the Master Healer.

"Yes, it can kill. It killed a lot of people then, and it takes one or two whenever it recurs. We've not had it in the valley in any strength for a hundred Turns."

"Drastic action having been taken to take the healthy ones away from the source," Master Oldive said musingly. "Well, bedrest and warmth we can certainly supply, and I need some of those herbs, my dear. Do they grow anywhere else but your home valley?"

"At High Reaches still, in all probability, Master."

"It's not safe to go there," one of the other Healers said. "If it grows in this girl's valley, we can harvest it there."

"No, we cannot, because we might spread the illness," Master Oldive said at once. "Can you identify the herb, if you go to High Reaches? Not to the Weyr, but to the places where your family came from?"

"Do you not have lists and pictures of herbs here? It might grow anywhere on Pern."

"And I would spend time sending to all my widespread Healers to find it," Master Oldive said gently. "Will you go? On dragon back?"

Andova stared at him, shocked. "On a dragon? Me?"

"That would be the fastest way, and there are several dragon riders here who could take you, who like you had the merest brush but who must be kept away from others. If one can be found to take you, will you go?"

She looked around at the people already laid low, and nodded.

"I'll go, Master."


	12. Chapter 12

With Andova's declaration, it seemed that a dam had burst, suddenly everyone was busy again, planning and make decisions.

"I need someone to send word to my family about this, about what I'm doing, Master."

"I will send the fastest runner - or no - I can't - "

"Send a dragon rider who can drop a package of writing. No contact, but reassurance."

Master Oldive nodded. "That sounds sensible. I'll see to it, my dear, whilst we ready some containers for you to bring the herbs back. Perhaps you could write out the recipe for the soups you use?"

"Every cook has their own recipe, Master, and yours must be the same. You must boil all the water you use, of course, for cleaning and washing, and especially for drinking."

"Sensible Healer precautions, but so often that gets overlooked," he replied ruefully, and Andova retired to a corner to sit down and try and remember the mixtures they used in their hold when winter fever struck. Beauty was still on her shoulder, she realised, tucked down, making occasional murmurings, and Andova picked up confused pictures of the Harper Hall, little snatches of tunes Beauty had learned, and also the images she herself had provided, of the warm kiln rooms.

"There's a message from Harper Hall," one of the younger journeymen said when he provided her with materials to write a message. "Do you have - oh yes - there she is - Mistress Menolly wondered where her firelizard had gone, and asked if you had her."

"This is Beauty. She likes her eyeridges scratched."

The journeyman reached out tentatively and scratched, and Beauty basked in his admiration.

"Vain creature," Andova said, and the journeyman agreed.

"Are you going to come and train with us, Mistress Andova?"

She hesitated, re reading her message, and then looked up at him.

"I don't think I can become a full time Healer," she said slowly. "I would like to learn some more about healing, but there are duties and obligations at home - "

He nodded as she handed him the folded note.

"I know what you mean. But we don't live in total isolation here, once you've absorbed the training you need, you would go home."

Andova glanced instinctively at Master Healer Oldive.

"That would be for my father to discuss with me," she said, and watched the journeyman walk away. His bedside manner would be kindly and comforting, she thought at random, not like Viman at all. On the thought, he appeared in the rooms, carrying some baskets of herbs. Seeing her, he came across.

"Are you sickened, cousin? Have you caught this illness?"

"No, not at all. But since everyone's gone crazy with worry over it, I'm stuck here for now."

"Is it the same illness as the one that killed off the madman?"

Andova stared at him in shock.

"Killed off - killed off - what madman?"

"The one at High Reaches, the one who said he kept faith with the old stories - my grandfather said they were both as mad as each other, the taint probably carried down the generations, and there wasn't any truth in the stories of the return."

Andova glared at him in fury.

"Oh he did, did he? Your grandfather seems to have said a lot of very stupid things and all of you believing him!"

"Well, he made a lot of sense!"

"Only if you discount the stories of the return. What did he say when a thousand dragons and their riders turned up at the abandoned Weyrs?"

"That wasn't anything to do with the return stories and songs, he says. Wishful thinking on the part of a parcel of madmen."

"And women," Andova replied heatedly. "Don't forget there wouldn't have been any madmen to make the journey to the Weyr if Vikna hadn't married Andoya and kept the faith!"

They glared at each other, and Master Healer Oldive was hurrying over.

"My dear, what is this? What's upset you? Viman, is this not your cousin?"

"I wouldn't want her as my cousin, she's as mad as the rest of them," he snapped. "Madmen all of them, going up to empty Weyrs as if to a place of pilgrimage!"

He stormed off, and Master Oldive studied Andova's angry expression as she wiped surreptitiously at her eyes. Beauty had flown up into the rafters of the room and was calling anxiously, and then disappeared _between_.

"I have always wondered if that little drift of coldness they leave is the cold of _between_," Master Oldive said conversationally as he sat down beside Andova. "Were you quarrelling with my journeyman, Mistress Andova?"

"No, not exactly,Master," she replied, recovering herself.

"What was the return, and who were the madmen? Will you tell me?"

"It's in our family history," Andova said. "That when the dragons and their riders went forward, someone happened on them by chance at one of their stop-overs - every twenty five Turns or so. And someone in the family always went to the empty Weyr on that night, brewing up kettles of _klah_ and taking food in case they needed it. The story is that they always welcomed the hot drink."

"So would I, if I went more than those three breaths of nothingness," Master Oldive assured her. "And is it true?"

Andova stared out into the room.

"I don't know," she replied at last. "I don't know who would know if it was truth, Master."

"The dragon riders of High Reaches, obviously."

"But a hundred Turns ago, when this illness devastated the valley, the chain was broken," she said in a quiet voice. "The man who knew the dates and times died, and they never found any written references as to when it occurred. And the family left High Reaches. My father tried at Fort Weyr a few times, but he was looking for one particular night, and he never found the dragon riders, although he says he thinks he once came close enough to find a few things they had left behind by accident."

Master Oldive sighed and shook his head.

"Reading and writing very nearly died out altogether on Pern, you know. Harpers and Healers kept it alive in their Halls, but even they could not hope to teach everyone, and the Lord Holders wanted workers, not thinkers, on their expanding estates."

"I know."

He roused himself and smiled at her.

"If it is a High Reaches rider who takes you, and I think we have several here with only a touch of illness, you could ask him."

"I suppose I could."

"Your message has gone to your home, by the way."

She nodded.

"And once this is over, I will be able to go home and talk to my father?"

"Of course you will, my dear, and take my letters, I hope, about your future?"

"Yes, I would welcome that, Master."

He pressed her hand. "I am glad of that."

"But I'm too old to be an apprentice?"

"Let me worry about who I have as my apprentice, my dear Andova. Let us get this crisis out of the way first, and perhaps a full disclosure of your family history, before we look at that part of your life."

There had been activity in the outer room, they had heard voices, and now a journeyman came over.

"A dragon rider has been found, Master, and is willing to take Mistress Andova. I've found some riding clothes for her - I'm afraid you'll have to wear men's clothing, Mistress."

Andova smiled gratefully at him, forbearing to mention she often wore trousers when involved with the heavy work in the hold, but from his twinkling smile, she rather thought Master Healer Oldive had guessed that. He and the Master Harper made a pair, and she wondered if all the Craft Masters were of the same kindly but intense intelligence.

"I will see you on your return, then," Master Oldive said. "Be careful, my dear, and don't take any risks finding these herbs."


	13. Chapter 13

The dragon was blue, a gorgeous blue that was the shades of all the blues she had ever seen, Andova thought, when she had stopped admiring him and allowed herself to be lifted to the saddle on his back. The rider, who introduced himself as G'ren, busied himself with harnessing Andova securely, making sure the carrysack for the herbs was firmly attached, that she had her hair tucked into her helmet, her gloves fitted closely to the cuffs of the jacket, the collar of her jacket was turned up.

"I'm sorry to be so particular, but the shocking cold of _between_ can be severe," he told her. "The space of three breaths and we'll be out over High Reaches and of course it's far to the north, in high country, and winter comes early to that Weyr. I understand you need to land near what used to be called Dansovik's Hold?"

"Dansovik? There was a hold called Danvik's Hold. Did you know it?"

He laughed ruefully, running a hand through his sparse brown hair.

"Eleven Turns ago in my lifetime I attended a gather there," he said. "Dansovik was Danvik's father. He was a curt and curmudgeonly old chap, but he had some lovely women-folk!"

Andova tried to imagine what it would be like to go so far forward in time that even the landscape of memory was swept away. She shivered, and G'ren squeezed her leg.

"We'll be fine. Daranath says all will be well."

"Please thank him - or can I do it myself?"

"He might like that."

Andova carefully sent the thought, and was startled to hear a voice in her head, akin to G'ren's, but a few tones deeper, thanking her.

Her head jerked as the dragon rose, and then Andova settled herself, gripping the harness leads, gazing down in awe as the Healer Hall diminished in size, as she saw the landscape of both Halls, and the road up to Fort Hold, and the road back towards her valley, and then G'ren was holding her tightly and they snapped into _between_.

Andova was sure she had screamed, but as they emerged into the real world again G'ren was patting her shoulder.

"Well done!" he shouted over the wind of their passage. "Taken to it like a natural! That's High Reaches Weyr, with the Stones, but we'll circle off to the left."

They circled a wooded area, and came down near a clearing at a stream, their breath huffing out in clouds.

G'ren sat looking around.

"This is as near to the gather site as I can put us," he said quietly. "This is - very difficult - you know - very difficult. _Dragons must fly, when Thread is in the sky_, but all the same - "

Andova squeezed his hand, trying to reassure him, and heard Daranath also assuring his rider they had done the right thing to come forward. G'ren roused and smiled and dealt with the business of harness and dismounting, and Andova made her way to the stream, because the herbs she wanted grew near water. There was a small area of cress as well, and she cut some of that because it would be a welcome addition to whatever soups were made in Healer Hall.

"We're hundreds of klicks away from Fort, yet we can be back there in an instant," she said to G'ren as he helped her pull back thorny bushes to search for herbs. "It would take so much time to walk here, or come on runner beasts. It must be tempting to the Lord Holders to send dragon riders on idle commissions."

"They do try," G'ren replied. "There's a watch dragon of course, and a dragon rider can be summoned for something really important."

"Do all dragons speak to every other dragon?"

"Yes, they can do. Not every dragon knows all the other dragons, of course."

_- we know the biggest one, and the Golden Queen of us all_

"Oh! Who spoke - was that Daranath? Who is the biggest one?"

"Mnementh, F'lar's bronze, the Weyrleader of Benden."

"It was Lessa who came to fetch all of you."

"I've not met her, she went to Fort Weyr because Ruatha looked to Fort. I gather she is - rather impressive."

Andova laughed as she cut sections of each plant, shaking out seed heads, taking a portion of those as well, wrapping them and putting them in her bag. G'ren was watching the sky, she realised, and gave an impatient snarl.

"I should have timed it! Do you have everything you need? We'll have to go."

Andova also looked instinctively into the east, and there was a faint, very faint, veil over the far horizons.

"Thread?" she asked incredulously. "Is that what it looks like?"

"Don't be afraid! Other Weyrs will deal with it before it reaches us, but to be safe, I think we ought to be back in Healer Hall."

_- someone comes. It is Simoneth_

Another dragon was circling and landing, a huge bronze, so pale it looked almost gold in the sunlight. The rider jumped down and came across, a tall man, and looked in amazement at the filled carrysack.

"G'ren - what's all this - an odd way to court a girl!"

G'ren flushed.

"I'm not courting, B'den! This is Andova, from the family of Vikna, she's come to gather herbs against that illness we keep getting. Apparently it was rife in these valleys as well - but I need to get her back to Healer Hall." He jerked his head towards the far signs of Thread, and B'den nodded.

"The family of Vikna, you say? Then I think I might just accompany you, G'ren, and find out more! Mount up, because that Thread may be far away, but it's still a menace."

Andova became aware she was staring at the bronze rider with her mouth agape, and hastily shut it, turning away to finish lacing the carrysack and tidying herself. _B'den himself, the dragon rider of legend, the one celebrated in song and story, the rider of the pale bronze, who might even be her ancestor._

The two dragons landed at Healer Hall and Andova thanked G'ren sincerely, patted Daranath and then hurried into the Hall to deliver the herbs, drawn into preparing them, seeing the sick people being tended to. B'den on his bronze had not landed with them, and she supposed he had gone up the Weyr, and hoped she would have a chance to speak to him before he went back to his Weyr, remembering he had come with them with alacrity once he had learned her family name.

"Take a rest, my dear," Master Oldive said when he found her heavy-eyed and weary. "You've laboured for hours on our behalf, take a nap until tomorrow."

Someone showed her to a room, left a bowl of warm water, and she locked the door and washed, and fell gratefully onto the comfortable narrow bed, and slept straight away.


	14. Chapter 14

It seemed to be only a heartbeat before Andova awoke. She lay in the darkness wondered what had woken her, and realised it must be the next day, although the closed shutters made it seem so dark.

She pulled them open and the door opened at the same instant. Andova grabbed for the blanket as a woman came in with a tray of food and _klah_.

"You're awake, then," she said unnecessarily. "Master Oldive said you were to sleep all you could, and wake naturally. Eat this up and come through when you're dressed."

Andova thanked her and uncovered the dish of cereal with a spoon of stewed fruit in it, the pitcher of _klah_, eating quickly and then dressing, finding her own bag in a corner of the room. Feeling better, she picked up the tray and went out into the corridor, wanting to find the kitchens, but a healer apprentice was stationed by the door and took the tray, waving her to go through into the Hall.

Coming into the main Hall, Andova was aware of people moving purposefully around, and the familiar smell of some of the medicine they brewed at home.

To her astonishment her father was seated at the big table in the Hall, with her uncle Porgrun standing watchfully by his shoulder. Piled in front of him were the Record Books from the Muniment Room. The Master Harper sat across from him, and with him was the tall bronze rider B'den.

Porgrun saw her and gestured her over, and Andova came to stand by the table.

"The bronze rider came to fetch us," Porgrun told her. "And to take a good look around our hold whilst he was about it."

Master Harper Robinton smiled up at her.

"And is this the final verse, my dear? The one you were so reluctant to tell us?

_Free and high, free and high,_

_Fly over time to guard us all._

_With wings of power and guiding mind,_

_Fly here, this Pass's Thread to defy._"

Andova looked instinctively at her father who nodded.

"That one, and several similar ending verses, Master Robinton, kept in our family records."

"Young journeyman Viman didn't seem to know them?"

"His grandfather doesn't think there's any truth in the stories," Porgrun said. "Regretfully, I have to say that my great uncle is not a very thinking person."

"If he's Viman's grandfather, doesn't that make you his brother?"

"No, he's a generation back from us, and quarrelled very successfully with our grandfather Danva. They divided the wealth of the hold and made their own way."

"And you kept the records."

Kaval nodded, laying his hand on the records.

"We always knew we'd see the dragon riders return, even though the chain was broken. It was no surprise to us when the tithe arrived from Fort Weyr, and we had sufficient put by to pay it immediately."

"Not many did," Robinton said in a neutral voice.

"But they did not have prior knowledge, did they?"

"You didn't share this particular morsel of knowledge?"

Kaval gave a mirthless smile.

"I've been called a great many things in my life, and never aimed to have _madman_ added to the list," he said coldly. "I travelled to Ruatha to see the tapestry in Lord Fax's day. The one that was new when Dansovik was alive at High Reaches. And I tried to mend the chain, but to try and fix one night was impossible."

"We came down into High Reaches and I knew at once that something was wrong," B'den said. "There were no welcoming fires, no pitchers of _klah _to warm us from such a long time _between_. We could spare no time to look, but I took one swing over the land, and saw the graves, and that Danvik's hold was abandoned." He shrugged, shaking his head. "We needed to get on, so I couldn't find out, and then we landed here in this time, with Thread to fight, and weyrs to clean and refurnish. Danvik's hold was completely gone, overgrown and turned to woodland."

"The family came south to Vikna's ancestral lands when illness swept away those who knew," Kaval said. "There are records to show that as well, but of course no one wrote down the exact times."

"Her name was Andoya," B'den said, looking directly at Andova. "Your name, but shifted with time, they tell me."

"Yes, I am named after her."

"She came twice more, the last time as an old lady, with her son, and Kvaloy had died the previous Turn, she told me, and that she would nevermore see me in this life. He had written me a few lines, and I keep them always."

He fell silent, and Kaval turned the pages of the record book.

"Here, in her own hand. _This is the last time I have seen him, B'den, dear Auntie Smola's love, the most handsome dragon rider, the best dancer she had ever met. You and I, Auntie, will dance together for long ages before he joins us to dance again_."

Robinton traced the letters of the name of that long-dead person, the faithfully kept records of a family across the Turns.

"To have come forward in such a leap of faith is - astonishing," Kaval continued. "As Vikna himself wrote - here - _they came out of the darkness and gave us a sense of time ever flowing on this world of ours, and the reassurance that deeds of great daring will still be done by heroes and heroines of every age_."

"Yes, Andoya did say that when he settled, Vikna lost that ugly accent and pretence that he was anything but an educated man," B'den said dryly. "And I have for you the words that Kvaloy wrote to me."

He reached into an inner pocket and took out a leather folder, and handed over a folded piece of parchment.

Master Robinton cleared his throat and read the lines B'den carried next to his heart.

"_B'den my friend, my dragon rider friend,_

_Take me with you on your journey._

_Take me onwards to our destiny_

_Through Turns and Turns and Turns_

_Your dragon calls, he waits to fly,_

_Both of you journeying onward._

_Let me come with you, flying unknown_

_Through Turns and Turns and Turns._

_We'll not meet again, my dragon rider friend,_

_In the future you'll live without me._

_Do not forget me, B'den my friend,_

_Though Turns turn me to dust._"

Andova was sure she was not the only one to be having trouble with tears, and then suddenly Master Healer Oldive was at Master Harper Robinton's side, a journeyman sliding a tray of drinks onto the table and then going again.

"I sense that this meeting is fairly fraught," Master Oldive said in his gentle voice. "Let us take a drink, each, of this refreshing brew, and order our thoughts, yes?"

In the very ordinariness of taking the mugs and adding sweetener, handing the spoon around, everyone calmed down, and B'den refolded his parchment and put it away.

"I understand you have brought me your books of herbal remedies," Master Oldive said to Kaval. "Kind of you, and perhaps anticipating the talk I would like to have with you about your daughter Andova."

"You want her to study here for a while?" Kaval sipped his drink, glancing at Andova. "It must be as she wishes, of course."

"I want to see Falla through her pregnancy," Andova replied. "Then yes - I would welcome the chance to study."

"That would be acceptable," Master Oldive replied. "This alarming illness seems to be under control, and I think we'll not be surprised by it again, so I can release my patients as they recover. You took no ill effects, bronze rider?"

"Thank you, no. Not in this time nor in the past."

Master Oldive nodded. "Difficult times for you, I understand that. Duty and obligation are all very well, but you must forge a new life. It is as well that the dragon riders as a group have such strong ties to each other and their dragons."

"My wing is my most pressing concern," B'den admitted.

"As it should be, certainly. I am working with the Weyr Leaders, however, to ensure there is adequate time and place for rest in this Pass, which I think you did not have in your original Pass?"

B'den frowned at him.

"Time and place for rest? We roster the wings, Master Healer, to enable us to rest."

"But if you could come ahead, could you not also go back? This Pass has lasted nine Turns. Before that, there was no Thread, and Southern Weyr was established. It is in my mind to make a place where dragons and their riders can rest with no hint of Thread to disturb their dreams."

B'den looked at the concerned faces around him.

"I have known nothing but Thread," he said slowly. "I was born when the Eighth Pass was at its height, and I will die before this one ends. I would accept your offer, if it can be done, Master Healer, and I'm sure a lot of dragon riders would also, under the agreement of our Weyr Leaders. Timing it there and back, with the interval of a few days, has much to commend it."

Master Oldive nodded, making a note for himself.

"That is well. This has been fortuitous, all of you, that we should meet like this on neutral ground. I must go - I will see you before you leave, Holder Kaval, and talk about your daughter?"

"I will be sure to do that, Master Healer, thank you."

They watched him walk away, a distinctive figure due to the hunch of his back, and Master Robinton closed the Record Books he had been perusing.

"This is an extraordinary record, Kaval. I would be pleased to study it further."

"I don't think it will be straying far from my hold in the future," Kaval responded. Master Robinton nodded as he stood up.

"I too have duties to be about. It has been a pleasure, all of you."

B'den looked around at them.

"I have to return to High Reaches. Tell me, Andova, do you wear her locket?"

Andova reached into the throat of her dress and extracted the fine golden chain, with the gold locket swinging on it, and he nodded with a smile at her, and time foreshortened so that she knew what that far distant ancestress had felt, and indeed all the girls who had danced with B'den in those times.

He gave her a small bow, including her father and uncle with a sweeping glance.

"I am pleased to know Danvik's line has lived and prospered," he said formally. "That gives me great comfort because as a dragon rider there is no telling if something might happen to snuff out my life. I have not been one to scatter children unthinkingly around this world, and I tell you - I am as sure in my own mind as I can be that your family are my descendants."

"I will make sure this is written up in the family records," Kaval responded. "You are welcome, always, to my hold, of course, and anyone else who is a friend of yours."

He stood up to clasp hands, as did Porgun, and with a grin, B'den kissed Andova and then he too was leaving the Hall.

"Bold, and over bold, these dragon riders," Kaval said with a smile. "And a young man by the name of Mendal was hanging around asking after you, daughter?"

"Oh - um - yes, father, we have spent some time together."

He gave her a hug and a kiss, an unexpected demonstration, and Porgrun gathered up the Record Books to carry them to their rooming house, and Andova followed them out into the sunshine of another day, a day when she would begin the rest of her life, she thought, and it had expanded vastly now, with the knowledge of what had gone before, and the bright hopes for the future of herself and all of Pern, guarded by the unselfish heroes of this age, those immortalised in the ballads.

"_Brightest and best are the ones who will guard us,_

_Come from the darkness and lend us their aid,_

_Red Star in the East, you threaten our ending,_

_Riders and dragons, you safeguard our world."_

So there we have it, and we bid farewell to this tale of Pern-between-the-cracks. Thank you for following the story, and for all your kind reviews.


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